The Saddest Summer Of Samuel S E-Book

J.P. Donleavy

• Herausgeber: The Lilliput Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

A wily American driving his psychiatrist crazy in Vienna. Prey of a wealthy countess who wants him comfortable and secure – and her very own. Master of his domain – his sealed, darkened, disheveled apartment on a dank Vienna sidestreet. Abigail was not the girl for Sam. She was a brash, sexy American coed with only men on her mind. And se had Sam very much on her mind at the moment…

Leseprobe

THE SADDEST SUMMER OF SAMUEL S

“Glorious … a milestone in Donleavy’s writing career.”

—SanFranciscoExaminer

“A haunting story… touching and outrageous.”

—BostonGlobe

Contents

Title PageTHE SADDEST SUMMER OF SAMUEL SAbout the AuthorBOOKS BY J. P. DONLEAVYCopyrightAdvertisement

J. P. DONLEAVY

THE SADDEST SUMMER OF SAMUEL S

THE SADDEST SUMMER OF SAMUEL S

He lived in a grey shadowy street in Vienna two flights up behind four dirt stained never opened windows. He rose slowly mornings paddling off balance on bare feet to the dark stale air of his bathroom across the hall. Sometimes pausing to watch the little line of red ants disappearing down into the wall. He had arrived at an age when the flesh begins to go its own way and the spirit struggles to hold it back.

He took good care of his heart by eating the boiled meats and never let religion rob him of his appetite or sense of humour. Life was still before him in this strange outpost of a city where the sounds of the rest of the world drifted and one had to tap one’s skull to let them in. Five years ago he had a plan to straighten himself out and now these many thousands of dollars later he still went, clocking in twice a week to this small rotund doctor who sat askance in the shadows quietly listening and sometimes chuckling. And at long last he had an insight. That one grows older faster staying in the same place.

Samuel S had devised a rhythm of life and a trickle of income, setting up little projects which could last him, if not the rest of his life at least six weeks at a stretch. He became a specialist in American hospitality, collecting three female clients of Vienna’s old world who felt a whimsical need to keep up with the new. After their second little get together with hominy cakes and a reenactment of a Harvard president’s tea, he abruptly wore out his welcome and temporary profession by crossing his legs with the top most knee under a tray of Dresden. There were embarrassing stains on two of his clients’ dresses. The third client further busting up his party and her own friendships by doubling up with laughter and falling on the floor where she rolled. This latter client, a widowed countess, went on to lesson three, the lighting of a match on the sole of one’s boot. She thought this great stuff and Samuel S suspected she was out for laughs and like his analyst was tuning an ear, albeit elegant, to his remarks and chuckling just enough so that he could not plant a kiss there as well.

The Countess, light haired and willowy with wiry muscle, maintained that it was monstrous that a man of Samuel S’s sensibility, wit and knowledge, should go to waste on the world. And upon these occasions Samuel S would say, “Ah but Countess, you appreciate me and that is enough.”

“Ah that is so Herr S and I am flattered that you should feel so.”

And so Samuel S skied down the spiritual slopes towards the buds of May and this continental summer. With an odd dipping of a ski pole in a deep depression. But attending the Opera, nights of Mozart and Verdi, the Countess taking his arm as they slowly made their way up to the foyer where under the gleaming chandeliers she told him who was not quite who but who they thought they were. Twice it got tense as they returned to her apartments and she said there is seven years between us Herr S because I do not lie about my age, but perhaps I should lie because I could. And then she left him standing there on this sombre sandalwood scented landing with the door slowly closing in his face. And the second time she had said “Come in, come in.” She played Fauré’s Requiem on her gramophone and poured him a viertel of champagne in a tumbler and Samuel S thought, this is it, I’ve broken through the culture and will soon have her in the bedroom. But she said in a loud clear voice, “What on earth is the matter with us, Herr S we are living in some kind of phony dreamworld, who cares if we go to the opera, who cares if we are superiors in this village which used to be a city.” And she smiled, warm and wan. “Ah Herr S it would be so nice if we could waste time on the bank of some river back in my young days while thinking there was a lifetime to be lived.”

Samuel S reserved this disconcerting thought to pass on to the Herr Doctor and he put a straight question to him. “Herr Doctor do you think this Countess is giving me the runaround. I mean to say she must need it.” Herr Doctor with a gentle finger scratched a little area under his eye and said what he always said, “Please continue.” These were cold words during an even colder winter in Austria when the rooftops wore white for weeks and chimneys melted snow by day and at night left a streak of ice which gleamed in the sun at dawn. Then slowly, with much warning, his money ran out. And Samuel S went silently under. Skis, poles and all. Deep down. Just as the sappy tips of buds were sneaking out on the trees the centre of April.

He went foolishly from one acquaintance to another for palmfuls of coins. Until a chill crept up the backs of his legs and he dragged his heels through the streets. And late one afternoon the end of May and in the middle of a tiny deserted square, three ghosts stood in the entrances of the three alleys ahead, one said I am poverty and bring lonely sickness, another said nothing but broke mystical wind and the last, a Radcliffe girl said, although she only wore red and blue striped ankle socks she had graduated. Samuel S stopped, shivered and made for the nearest post office where he bought a telegram and cried out desperately to rich friends in Amsterdam to send money, a bulk sum, to hold him afloat because he was sinking, sinking.